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I don't think that Valve would be in any position to give out either Quake 3 engine source code or "data manipulation tools for the data on which that engine operates" for an id Softwaregame.

The retail box model is horribly broken and will likely never be fixed.

Stupid me! It is Valve, not Sierra that makes Half-life (which is what CounterStrike is based on). Sierra makes my wife's board games software!

The problem is twofold: First, many people simply don't have money, or don't have disposable money to pay on software, and second, the license agreement is just too easy to break.

Now, I personally think MS Office is good software. And a lot of it -- I'd gladly pay Microsoft $80 for it (if I had $80 which I don't.) How much does Office run these days, $400? ($488.22 from CompUSA, just checked.) So what do I do with my $80?

You can't possibly believe that MS Office is worth nearly $500, or if you do, I've got an assload of software I'll sell you at those inflated prices.

Now, if I were to pirate MS Office, then your argument that Microsoft loses money vanishes into thin air. I wouldn't buy it at $500, no matter what, so they're not losing money. Hell, I'd be glad to give them $80, and I bet that would cover all their development costs. Seen in that sense, piracy is not theft, since nobody loses anything.

The second part of the problem is that it's just too easy to pirate. This goes especially for shareware, getting back to the original post. Free download, free use, after 30 days it starts beeping at me. Big whoop, I can put up with that, it's a hell of a lot easier than cracking Office.

This is where GNU-style or BSD-style free software gets its kick: It's much harder to break the license.

Let's be honest, very few people read or care about the GPL any more than they do Microsoft's EULA. The difference is that it's much harder to break the GPL, since the things that people will do with software in the course of using it (use it, share it, customize it) are allowed by the GPL. Microsoft could learn a lesson.

So this shareware outfit is sick of people "ripping them off"? Then take these two factors into account: First, is it priced right? I'd like to reiterate to any Microsoft types who might be listening: I think Office is well worth $80, and I'd pay $80 for it. That's $80 more than you're getting off me now. The same applies for this shareware thing. I've seen simple shareware that wants $40, and is obviously worth $5. Who wants to guess whether I paid for that?

Also, make sure your license agreement doesn't get in the way of normal use. Allow people to freely copy and play with and whatever.

Thirdly, rather than a MS-like product activation process, you may want to consider Valve's World ONline system, which I think is the best solution yet. Every license carries with it a WONid. The software is freely downloadable, and you can have as many copies as you like. The catch is that on startup it transmits your WONid to a server, which kicks you if your WONid is already in use. (I assume -- I've never been kicked, but then I don't give out my WONid.) The result is that you pay for use, rather than for software.

Grab a clue. There are plenty of profitable games companies around. There always will be. Just because some can't make a business model work and others are led by idiots you shouldn't conclude that there is no future. Of course, you have to be good.

• New coders for Valve so they can hurry up and release Team Fortress 2.
• An OC3 so I can get first post before anybody else has a chance to reload the index. (note - I don't first post)
• Requisite fast gaming machine... (>=2 athlons, gf2 , 2g ram, and several hard drives)
• Copyleft t-shirts
• Missile submarine
• FA-18 jet
• TFC - in real life!!!!!

Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate

Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that.

I have not seen anything about any aplication that allows DVD's to be played under Linux. I know someone was working on a LinDVD, but I thought that was still under devlopment.

U.S. TV networks, among others, sued iCraveTV in federal court in Pittsburgh (where its domain name was registered), and Canadian producers and TV stations filed suit in Canada. The court's swift response was a temporary restraining order, which commanded the Web site to close pending a trial. Chief Judge Ziegler of the western district of Pennsylvania made it clear the site was violating copyright law.

I did a whois and found that yes the domain is registered to someone in PA, but the Administrative contact is listed in Toronto.

The Internet ranks alongside Gutenberg's movable type and the invention of television as one of the three great inventions of human society. But it cannot reach its potential if partisans insist on following Lessig's tattered counsel. Or if closed minded people like you try to tear it down claiming IP and copyright laws. You've been lucky this far... but I'd be willing to bet if this went on long enough you're going to find a court that doesn't agree with you.

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References taken from http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 10885,00.html

No doubt "thieves" should be punished and content should not be "stolen." But "theft" is defined relative to the law and the First Amendment, not to an ideal of perfect control. And when the law grants a right to speech, that right is ordinarily defended even if control over that speech is not perfect. But according to the MPAA, until iCraveTV can "guarantee" that no hacker can crack its security system, iCraveTV should be enjoined from giving Canadians access to desktop TV. The principle is extraordinary. Does a movie theater lose the right to show R-rated movies if local moralists can produce a ticket sold to a 15-year-old? Should Amazon.com (AMZN) be barred from selling Mein Kampf anywhere if a German court finds that some Germans succeeded in buying the illegal (in Germany) book? Can Congress ban porn on the Net if it is shown that kids might be exposed?

A very frightening thought indeed. Ask yourself is this the type of world you want to live in??

Actually there are some lawyers that are going after the porno right now. There is a lawyer that wants Valve to patch half-life so that color spraypaint can't be used anymore. Aparently people are using the spraypaint to traffic porn to minors. I don't remember the link offhand... it may be at halflife.net

Um...Half-life is not made by id software...It was written by Valve Software and published by Sierra. But ironically all Half-life would need to do is hand the source over to Loki, since it does support OpenGL already, and it could be ported readily.
Links to prove it:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/projects.htm
http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/half- life

I really have very little respect for Tim Sweeney any longer. He has shown he can code C++ extremely well, and write games that are very nice...but he has no business attempting to dictate technology. He has made claims about OpenGL which are simply not true (for example his claim regarding texture swapping and memory usage being better on Direct3D.) I have also not seen ONE feature that he or any other engine maker has published in a game that BOTH API's couldn't handle equally or near enough. Maybe he has a vested interest in Microsoft (stock?) or something...